Isn't this like the second or third time this has been posted? And it's not like this is the only forum I've seen this exact same link. Well it's more fun than Tetris at least. But lets actually do something interesting like talk about the actual issues. If anyone is up for that. So the first box says...
Cut foreign aid in halfDidn't click it. Wouldn't want to do anything to hurt our geopolitical leverage in oil producing dictatorships.
X Eliminate earmarksDefinitely clicked that one.
Eliminate farm subsidiesI'm on the fence on this one. Agriculture regulations suck, but American farm subsidies are already lower than those in most other developed countries the US competes with, and if we drop them and lose food security we've given other countries bargaining power. There's nothing particularly wasteful about dumping money into agriculture versus the rest of our service based black hole economy as it's a more capital intensive sector than most. I didn't click it.
Cut worker pay/state aidDidn't click any of these, simply as any cuts to public services like education, research or infrastructure that might result are penny wise and pound foolish.
After all the US currently spends 40% of what it needs just to maintain it's current level of infrastructure.
X Reduce nuclear arsenal and space spendingThis could be done without any real cost. It's not like you need a whole lot of nukes to fry China, and until they start working on an effective missile defense there's no need for us to encourage them to first.
Other defense cutsDidn't click any of these. Things are hard enough already in Iraq and Afghanistan. I could see withdrawing from the latter but in Iraq we have a shot.
X Enact medical malpractice reformAn entirely reasonable thing to do, which has worked well in the states it's been implemented in.
X Increase the Medicare eligibility age to 70What can I say? I'll help Obama set up death panel squads while I'm at it.
X Reduce the tax break for employer-provided health insuranceWorking people will lose coverage, which is bad. But pushing companies to pay for health insurance directly reduces their profit.
X Cap Medicare growth starting in 2013This is at least a start in slowing the insane demand-push inflation we get from our mixed public private ****care system.
X Raise the Social Security retirement age to 70 + SS and disability cutsNow there's no economic reason to keep those funded, is there? I would cut further but the darn thing won't let me. Those liberals at NYTimes are making me
have to do tax increases!
Return the estate tax to Clinton-era levelsAs silly and Reaganite as this sounds, the estate tax actually hurts growth by reducing accumulated wealth and therefore lowering savings rates. The effect on work incentives from inherited wealth is minimal in comparison as far as research shows.
I clicked most of the rest of the tax increases just to run a larger federal budget surplus. Budget surpluses tend to boost overall savings rates as well as improve the current account and trade balance. I didn't go for the capital gains tax, carbon tax, and bank tax though. A sales tax is a good idea in the US mainly because it hurts imports and will help bring world trade back to something halfway reasonable.
Link, since everyone else did. In practice I wouldn't push for any cuts at this time as the economy recovers. 2014 is a good point to start. That sounds rather late, but cutting the deficit when the economy is still producing under capacity is risky.
This is all assuming of course that the current federal debt limit shenanigans play themselves out as usual.
